QBI Neuroscience Seminar: Eco-Oncology: Applying principles of ecology to improve outcomes in oncology
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- Professor Brent Reynolds
Lillian S Wells Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Florida,
Gainesville, Florida
Title: Eco-Oncology: Applying principles of ecology to improve outcomes in oncology
Abstract: There are striking similarities between processes governing growth, dispersal, and persistence of natural populations and initiation and progression of cancers such as brain tumors. Just as individuals in natural populations reproduce and die, cancer cells divide to produce more cancer cells and die due to programmed cell death or predators such as chemotherapy and radiation. Cancer cells also disperse and colonize other tissues and organs, equivalent to dispersal, colonization, and invasion of new habitats by plants, insects and animals.
Thus, the problem of controlling cancer is conceptually similar to controlling invasive exotic species that proliferate rapidly, and invade new habitats. Despite similarities between ecological processes and those controlling neoplastic progression, little effort has gone toward applying ecological principles to understand and control cancer. Such an understanding can be used to develop an ecologicallybased adaptive therapeutic approach (akin to adaptive resource management), aimed at improving the quality of the host’s life and improving survival.
Starting with central tenets of pest management we have developed new therapeutic approaches to treat aggressive malignant cancers and find that these approaches are as successful as many standard of care treatments but exhibit reduced toxicity and are simple and cost effective to implement.
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